Apple Music's 100 Best Albums

The Apple Music 100 Best Albums is a list of the best albums in history created by the streaming service Apple Music based upon an opinion survey and curated music ranking. Its team crafted the list alongside a group of artists that included Pharrell Williams, J Balvin, Maren Morris, and Charli XCX. The list is an editorial statement rather than being data-based, and does not take into account any streaming figures on Apple Music or any other streaming service.

The list named ''The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'' as the best album, followed by Michael Jackson's ''Thriller'' and then the Beatles' ''Abbey Road''. The list received mostly negative reviews from fans and critics.

Background

The lowest 10 placements (#91–100) of the list were announced on May 13, 2024, via a press release by Apple. It was also revealed that the whole list would be released as a countdown revealing 10 albums each day for the next 9 days. To accompany the list, Apple Music unveiled a dedicated microsite to analyze and discuss the albums.

Reception

The list received mostly negative reviews from fans and critics. Aidin Vaziri of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' wrote that "The selection sharply contrasts with the traditional rankings by legacy music publications, such as ''Rolling Stone''." Ben Cohen of ''The Wall Street Journal'' wrote that the list "was clearly a stunt to get attention and sell subscriptions to Apple Music", with its ultimate goal being to "get people to actually engage with these albums", while Chris Willman of ''Variety'' wrote that the list "exists almost expressly to make you mad". Multiple critics cited recency bias, with the list overrepresenting newly released albums.

Gwilym Mumford of ''The Guardian'' called the list "certainly baffling in places", noting the absence of artists such as Johnny Cash, Diana Ross, The Supremes, and The Who, as well as the list's underrepresentation of country music. Ryan Teague Beckwith of ''MSNBC'' commented that the list generously represents rock and hip hop, while only including "token nods" to jazz, folk, reggae, and punk, and neglecting to include blues, gospel, or world music albums. Many fans criticized the list's placement of ''1989 (Taylor's Version)'' by Taylor Swift at number 18, topping highly-regarded pop albums such as ''Pet Sounds'' by The Beach Boys and ''Hounds of Love'' by Kate Bush, with Cohen calling the placement "absurd".

Several critics commended Apple Music's unorthodox placement of ''The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'' as the greatest album of all time. In response to the placement, Lauryn Hill said, "I appreciate the acknowledgement, I really do, but I’d be remiss not to also acknowledge all of the music and artists who informed and inspired me ... The leaders of community and movements that sparked me, the social dynamics and music scenes, both older and current at the time, that intrigued and inspired me to contribute."

Complete list

Statistics

Genres

The following table lists the genres of the albums included on the list, which are based on Apple Music's assigned genre.

Number of albums from each decade

Artists with multiple albums

The following table lists the artists who have two albums included on the list.

Record labels with multiple albums

The following table lists the record labels who have multiple albums included on the list. This is based on the labels under which each album was released originally, not the current copyright holders.

Albums by artist's country of origin

See also

* Album era
* ''All Time Top 1000 Albums''
* '' Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums''
* NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
* ''1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die''
* Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
* Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
* Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time
* Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time

Footnotes

References

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External links

Apple Music 100 Best Albums
by ''Apple Music''
Lists of albums
20th century in music
21st century in music
1950s-related lists
1960s-related lists
1970s-related lists
1980s-related lists
1990s-related lists
2000s-related lists
2010s-related lists
2020s-related lists